Unfortunately, even your skilled troops are prone to gross lapses in judgment. Unless explicitly told to hold position, they rush into the gaping maw of enemy traps, charging well fortified positions until they think better of it. Vehicles dash across open fields to hunt down a scurrying driver and groups often disperse at the most inopportune times. Getting a grunt to elite levels is as much a matter of luck as planning.

There are a few other oddities as well. Critically wounded soldiers don’t seem to lose much effectiveness until they die. Grenades need to be tossed manually, adding another unnecessary level of micromanagement to a game that already requires you to herd cats on a regular basis. As the battle sprawls across the landscape, your attention will be divided on too large a front and people will die in stupid ways. The ability to set waypoints would have come in handy. Queuing orders would have been OK, too. The larger battles give you too much to do and too many antsy troops to do it.

Theatre of War ultimately ends up being a “nice try”. There is too little feedback and too little variety for its size to recommend it to hardcore wargamers and it’s too frustrating on too many levels to recommend to the neophyte. The engine looks great, and the manual is top notch, but all the pretty in the world can’t save you from the sense that there are better ways to do this. Maybe the next war.